Tags: Google Book Search Settlement, Books, Digital books, Copyright

For the past four years, Google has been systematically making digital copies of books in the collections of many major university libraries. It made the digital copies searchable through its web site—you couldn’t read the books, but you could at least find out where the phrase you’re looking for appears within them. This outraged copyright owners, who filed a class action lawsuit to make Google stop. Then, last fall, the parties to this already large class action announced an even larger settlement: one that would give Google a license not only to scan books, but also to sell them. It is difficult to overstate the importance of this settlement. The ongoing shift to electronic publishing is arguably the biggest transformation in books since Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press. The scale of Google’s plans boggles the mind. If the settlement is approved, Google will have the closest thing to a universal library the world has ever seen. We should be enthusiastic about the prospect of creating such a library, and concerned that it may be under the exclusive control of one company. This issue brief will connect this enthusiasm and this concern to the structure of the settlement that gives rise to them both.

The Google Book Search Settlement - Ends, Means, and the Future of Books.pdf